


A World of Our Own

by russian_blue



Series: Missing Spokes on the Conversational Wheel [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, F/M, Missing Scene, set in Haven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7562161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/pseuds/russian_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lavellan Inquisitor gives Solas a piece of her mind regarding the real meaning of Dalish culture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A World of Our Own

**Author's Note:**

> This is set early in DAI, and has no real spoilers beyond the game's introductory sequences.
> 
> First in a series of headcanon scenes based on narrative/conversational options I would have taken if Bioware had written them into the game.

She doesn't mean to argue with him. It was such a relief to encounter him on her way toward the Breach: another elf, an island of familiarity in a world gone insane. The sky was torn open, that harsh-voiced Seeker was ready to kill her if she breathed wrong -- but there was an elf there, and even though Verai knew it was stupid, his presence made her feel better. Of course not all elves got along, but still . . . she saw him as an immediate ally.

And he is, mostly. Until she talks to him about the Dalish.

He doesn't sneer the way humans do. That's part of what makes her snap back at him, really; she's used to shrugging off the sneers of humans, and this is different. It's clear he doesn't think much of them -- let alone count himself as one of them -- so she says, "What's your problem with the Dalish? Allergic to halla?"

Solas' mouth sets in a line she doesn't much like. "They are children, acting out stories misheard and repeated wrongly a thousand times."

"Oh, but you know the truth, right?"

"While they pass on stories, mangling details, I walk the Fade. I have seen things they have not."

 _Mangling._ "You've seen dreams. I'm no mage, but I know that not everything in the Fade is the pure, unadulterated truth."

She expects him to get defensive in return, but he only shrugs. "It comes closer than what your people are doing. The Dalish strive to remember Halamshiral -- but Halamshiral was merely a fumbling attempt to recreate a forgotten land."

"Halamshiral was _ours_ ," Verai snaps, without pausing to think. "That is what you overlook, spending all your time in dreams. Was Halamshiral a pure and unsullied replica of Arlathan, as it was in its days of glory? Of course not. But what else does the world offer us? Life among humans, living in human cities, worshipping human gods. Halamshiral was an elven city, an elven civilization. Whether or not it was _accurate_ hardly matters. It was ours, and the humans destroyed it. Just like they destroyed Arlathan. Just like they'll destroy us today, if we don't hold on to whatever fragments we can glue back together, and use those to build something new. Something else that's ours, and not just borrowed from them. _That_ is what the Dalish try to be."

Solas is looking at her as if she's some creature straight out of the Rift, a new form of life never before seen in Thedas. "I --" He pauses. She almost says something else, but clamps her jaw shut. It's clear he's thinking, and she already has enough sense of him to know that she should let him think in peace.

Finally he says, "I never thought of it in that light."

Honesty forces her to admit, "A lot of Dalish haven't. I'd be lying if I claimed that's how we all see it -- but that's how my Keeper thinks, and at least some of the people in my clan."

"You not least among them, clearly." Solas smiles faintly. "Interesting. You've given me a great deal to think about, _da'len_."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm an anthropologist by training, and this was my personal interpretation of why my Inquisitor was Team Elf Pride. It, uh, wound up being a painful mindset to be in by the time _Trespasser_ was done. O_O


End file.
